The Game
by ennessjai
Summary: Connie and Theresa decide to play a game with their oblivious daughters. Delena. Demena. Semi. Lovez.


Author's note - *comes out of hiding with hands up in surrender* so I know it's been about a million years since I've updated My Teacher's Daughter (is anyone even still reading that?) but I have a life, college and a job. So as an apology here is a one shot that I spat out at 4AM, apologies for any mistakes, I haven't proofread it.

PS. Twitter - _AscendoTua

Wattpad - EnnEssJai

Connie and Theresa decide to play a game.

Connie's POV

"I'm worried about them, Theresa," I sighed. It had been going on for far too long now. The lies. The secrecy. The deception. My daughter was very manipulative but as her mother there was only so much that she could get past me. Hence the reason for the increasingly regular late-night phone calls between Theresa and I.

Theresa sighed. It was late.

"I understand, Connie, I do. Alex... She hasn't been Alex lately, it's like she's a shell of herself. The smile doesn't reach her eyes anymore." I could almost see her rubbing her temples in distress. Too often now we were discussing the well being of our inseparable daughters, too many times we had shared concerns for them. "I'm at my wits end with her, I just don't know how to reach her. She won't talk to me, she won't even sit in the same room as me. I don't know what they're hiding but it's terrifying me." The glare of the street lamp outside the apartment window was blinding in the early hours of the morning.

The aforementioned girls were tucked up in bed, presumably fast asleep given the tranquil snores that were emitting from Mitchie's bedroom. "Mitchie is unreachable too..." I trailed off, twirling the tassels of the cushion between my fingers. Matching Theresa's former sigh, I swallowed harshly and made a suggestion I never wanted to have to make. "The last time Mitchie was acting like this I found cuts dancing across her wrists. I won't let her go through that again, I can't let my daughter hurt herself again. I'm going to search her bedroom whilst they're at school tomorrow. If she's hurting herself again I'm going to put a stop to it before it's too late. If the counselling didn't help her enough before I'm going to send her to a treatment facility." I explained shakily, willing desperately for the tears that were pooling in my eyes to stay where they belonged.

I'd never forget the day I found them.

The screaming, the crying, the blaming. Mitchie promised me that it wasn't my fault but how could it not be?

"Don't do this to yourself, not until you know for certain. Alex never did that. They're both the same with the way they're acting at the moment... I'll ransack Alex's room tomorrow too. It's late now, Jerry went to bed hours ago. I'm going to turn in." It was silent in the living room disregarding the incessant ticking of the clock and Alex's light snores. "You and I can meet for lunch tomorrow if you'd like, we can discuss this further. If we don't find anything we'll stage an intervention for the girls."

"I just want my little girl back, Theresa."

They skipped breakfast. Again.

"We're going to eat at the cafe by school, mom," she told me with that huge fake smile she always conjured when I was around. "I love you." A peck on the cheek and they were gone.

The bedroom door was locked, just like it usually was. She didn't know that I held a spare key. A spare key that until now I had never had to use. Mitchie didn't like me invading her personal space and I respected that. Until now.

It looked the same as it always had with the exception of a few new photographs hanging on the walls. The bed was unmade and there were clothes strewn over the floor. The perfect excuse, I thought to myself as I shakily began to fold the offending articles to place them inside the closet.

I couldn't prevent the gasp that escaped my lips as the closet door creaked open. My fingers numbly traced the silhouette of the first photograph that was taped inside the door. I was surprised but not shocked. It made perfect sense.

There was a letter taped beneath it, Alex's scrawled handwriting adorning the crinkled page of lined paper and a pair of lips printed in the top right hand corner, blood red lipstick. I couldn't help the twitching of the corners of my own lips as I skimmed the letters that were staining the page.

My Dearest Mitchie,

If there were a million words in my vocabulary, it still wouldn't be enough to describe the way my heart pounds in my chest whenever you're around. If all of the grains of sand from all of the beaches in the entire universe were in one place, they still wouldn't amount to the way I feel for you. If there were a thousand beats of my heart per second, it wouldn't be beating fast enough to showcase my love for you. You are everything to me, my world, my sun, my life, my future wife.

If I could fly up to the stars and bring you one, I'd do it in a heartbeat. If you told me that you wanted a unicorn, I'd traipse to the ends of the earth to bring one to you. I love you. I have known you since I was seven years old. I have called you my best friend since that day. I have loved you since I was thirteen years old. You are the one I want to marry, you are the one I want to have children with, you are the one I want to spend the rest of my life devoting myself to. I will do everything in my power to ensure that all of this happens.

There are so many things that I wish I could say to you, that I wish I could do for you, that I wish I could be for you. Unfortunately, all I can be is me. Alex Russo. But I, Alex Russo, promise to love you, to cherish you and to care for you until my very last breath. With this ring, I give to you everything good about myself, if you'll accept it. It also entails the negative aspects of myself, however together we can both work through our flaws.

This is not a proposal, although I would love for it to be, this is simply my promise to you to love you until I no longer hold air in my lungs.

I love you to the stars and back, my beautiful, perfect, sweet, kind, amazing, incredible future wife.

Forever yours,

Your Alex.

I felt myself tearing up as I read the words of commitment from my daughter's girlfriend.

My daughter's girlfriend.

She was in love.

I couldn't help but smile; it was a surprise but it wasn't a shock. Deep down I think that I always knew that they would end up together - from the very first time that I walked into Mitchie's bedroom and found their limbs tangled up in one another. They were eleven years old then. Ignorance is bliss but acceptance is so much more than that. So very much more.

I closed the closet door with yet another deafening creek and made a mental note to get some oil on the joint.

I felt relief wash over me when I found no razor blades nor any meals discarded in the bin or hidden under the bed. Only a memory box with a padlock and a key taped to the underside of her dresser. The decorative gold box was filled to the brim; greetings cards with loving words from her, photographs of the two of them, theatre tickets and a receipt from a restaurant with an itemised bill. Even a pair of diamond earrings that were tucked away snuggly inside a velvet Vivienne Westwood box.

"Did you find anything?" The smirk on Theresa's face said it all - she knew too.

"I assume we both found similar... Evidence?" It didn't feel like the correct term for what I had discovered in my beloved daughter's bedroom. Evidence suggested a crime, a wrongdoing of sorts. "They're in love, Theresa." I simpered; I had to. Connie returned my grin with a nod, taking a sip of the drink she had ordered prior to my arrival.

It was foreign to me to express it aloud - for years I'd had an inkling that there was some sort of romance between the two but I pushed it to the back of my mind; surely Mitchie would tell me, right?

Wrong.

"Alex has a picture of them in bed together underneath her pillow. Of all of the things I found that indicated a relationship between the two of them, that is the one thing I wish I hadn't seen. I'm not sure a mother will ever recover from witnessing something like that." I couldn't help but chuckle despite myself - how naive of me to believe for a moment that they may not be sexually active. Regardless, it was evident to me that they were very much in love with one another and were not just fooling around. And it wasn't like we had to worry about them getting one another pregnant.

"Do we tell them that we know or let them tell us when they're ready? They've been hiding it for fifteen months now." I couldn't say that I was shocked at how long they'd been keeping their romance a secret from us - there was no suggestion of the length of their relationship in Mitchie's room but clearly Alex's boudoir was a different story.

My stomach growled violently just as the waiter from earlier on delivered our meals to the table. It was the same restaurant as the one that had issued the receipt in Mitchie's memory box. "We could do either of those but I think that letting them tell us of their own accord is probably going to be the best option for them. They're young and most probably scared of how we may react." It was all that I had thought about since I first saw the photograph of Alex holding Mitchie in front of a fountain. "But I think that a catalyst in their admission could do them the world of good."

Theresa quirked an eyebrow with a smirk. She leaned her elbow on the table in front of us and rested her chin in her hand.

"Do continue,"

The first time we executed our ingenious plan to mess with them, it was the Friday following the Monday that we'd discovered everything. The young lovers were hidden away in Mitchie's bedroom, the only evidence of their presence being the irregular giggles that sounded through the oak door. It was locked, of course.

"This is actually a good movie," Theresa reached in to the bowl of popcorn that we were sharing as the main characters of the film, both female, shared a passionate, lust-driven kiss. Not unlike the ones that were undoubtedly betiding in my daughter's bedroom. Just as she popped the kernel into her mouth, the bedroom door swung open revealing a slightly dishevelled Mitchie and Alex. "Hey, girls, want to watch this movie with us? It just started." She offered quickly as they sauntered through the living room toward the kitchen.

They halted their movements when they saw the scene playing out on the television in front of them. It was barely noticeable but it was there - the look of query they exchanged in the space of a split second. "What on earth are you watching?" Mitchie questioned, her face a shade later than usual.

"It's called Lost and Delirious, it's set in an all-girls boarding school and is based around two girls that fall in love with each other but have to conceal their relationship because they're petrified of the controversy and potential outcome of their parents discovering who they really are." I explained, having recited it in my head multiple times. "One of the girls at work loaned it to me, her daughter made her watch it with her when she came out of the closet a few weeks back and she loved it so much that she recommended it to me." It was partially true; I'd received the DVD from a colleague who suggested I use it when explaining Theresa and my's plan to her.

"It's a wonderful movie, you should watch it with us." Theresa suggested, coving the smirk she was wearing by stuffing more popcorn in her mouth. I studied their faces and bit back a laugh as Alex turned a noticeable shade redder than she initially had been.

"I think we're good with Netflix but thank you."

They reemerged from the kitchen with drinks and snacks without a word. As they made it to Mitchie's bedroom, Theresa felt the urge to throw in an extra comment.

"It's so horrible that people feel the need to hide who they are from their parents,"

The second time we decided to mess with them, Theresa wasn't present. Mitchie had asked once again if Alex could stay for dinner and who was I to pass up an opportunity to mess with them once more.

"I'm sure that Alex would get you a unicorn if they existed, honey," I responded to Mitchie's desire to own the mythical creature. Her eyes widened for a nano-second before she recomposed herself and ate another mouthful of her food. It was fun, messing with them.

"Why would you say that?" She asked curiously, genuine wonder etched into her porcelain features. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and made a move to reach for her drink but instead retracted her hand and went back to her food, awaiting my response.

I smiled softly at her and wiped at my lips with the napkin that resided on my lap. "Well, she's your best friend. She loves you to the stars and back, it's what best friends do for each other. Best friends would traipse to the ends of the earth to make each other happy." It was risky but it was necessary. It wasn't an exact quote, merely a fragment of sections from Alex's letter. She shouldn't have it taped inside her closet door if she doesn't want it to be found. She shouldn't have it taped inside her closet door inside her locked bedroom if she doesn't want it to be found.

I spent the next five minutes wiping up the water that Alex spat out the second I finished speaking.

A month passed and despite regular efforts from both Theresa and I, there was no big revelation from the girls. If anything, they became sneakier with their relationship. They spent a lot more time out of the house and spent more nights in hotels than they did in our homes. "We're going to get a hotel again tonight," Mitchie explained to me, fiddling with her fingers. "We have a test tomorrow so we'll be up all night studying again and we don't want to disturb you." Fiddling with her fingers was a trait that Mitchie had when she was lying. Study session my backside.

"Mitchie, Alex and Theresa are here, are you ready?" I called from the living room as I opened the door to reveal my daughter's girlfriend and my close friend. Tonight was the big one.

Mitchie dropped her phone when she emerged from her bedroom, her eyes locked on her secret girlfriend. They held each other's gaze, most likely forgetting that they weren't alone in the room until I cleared my throat.

"Wow..." She muttered and if it wasn't for the silence in the room I wouldn't have caught it. Theresa and I shared a knowing glance then returned our attention to the young lovers. It took a moment but Mitchie finally managed to peel her eyes away from her girlfriend and retrieved her phone. "You look," her words caught in her throat, "you look really pretty, Alex." She complimented. I knew that she wanted to say so much more.

After the theatre, we headed to the restaurant that Mitchie still had the receipt from. "This is just like our first date all over again." It was barely audible but it was as loud as a drum.

"What was that, Alex?" Theresa asked from the passenger seat, glancing back at our daughters in the mirror. Alex cleared her throat.

"I just said that it's about time we ate. I'm starving." She patted her stomach for emphasis.

Damn, she was fast.

We ordered the exact same meals that were listed on the crumpled, itemised receipt that Mitchie had stashed away in her bedroom.

It didn't go unnoticed.

"It's quite romantic here, the perfect place for a first date."

"So do you have a boyfriend yet, Mitch?" It was simple but Theresa and I had planned it to be so. My daughter simply dipped her head, shook it and attempted to conceal the smile that played on her glossed lips.

"You two spend so much time together, maybe you should just date each other." Nonchalant, exactly as we had planned.

"Excuse me?" Alex and Mitchie were so in sync sometimes that it actually scared me a little.

"Well you're together all the time, you don't have boyfriends and let's face it, you're not getting any younger."

Alex and Mitchie shared a look, an entire conversation through their eyes. Theresa and I did the same, this was it.

"And you two would be okay with that?" Alex questioned, her voice quivering.

"Of course!" It was Theresa's turn to be in sync with me. "You're our daughters, we want you two to be happy," I continued.

It went quiet for a while, the background noise of other people, mainly couples, was distant but it was there. Yet again, the girls' eyes were speaking volumes to each other. My knees were shaking with anticipation.

"So if we were to tell you right now that we're dating each other... What would you say? Hypothetically of course." Mitchie sounded a little braver than Alex but I knew that deep down she was terrified. I could tell from the way her hands shook as she lifted her drink to her lips.

"Of course," I repeated with a smile. "Hypothetically we would say that we already know."

"Any hypothetically we would tell you to take that promise ring from that necklace and wear it proudly on your finger where it belongs, and rightly so."

Reviews are very much welcome!


End file.
